GIS in Hospital and Healthcare Emergency Management (PDF)

Ric Skinner, a Certified Geographic Information Systems Professional (GISP), is an experienced consultant and researcher whose expertise includes health geographics, hospital & healthcare preparedness, GIS and environmental monitoring and assessment. He is internationally recognized for "pushing the GIS envelope" in diverse hospital/healthcare areas: clinical/medical, health services & resources, and "hospital-land" security. He has fifteen years experience in "Health Geographics", a term he coined in the mid-1990s to recognize the application of GIS technology in hospitals and healthcare. In addition to his career in Health Geographics Ric has 23 years experience as a Certified Fisheries Scientist and Certified Environmental Professional in environmental monitoring and assessment, including fisheries ecology, aquatic bioassay/biomonitoring, state & federal environmental permitting, wetlands assessment & mitigation, and facility siting.

During his Health Geographics career (1994-present) Ric has provided independent consulting services to hospitals and a national health information company, held a position as Senior Research Scientist for three years (1999-2001) with the New Jersey Dept. of Health and Senior Services, Cancer Epidemiology Service/State Cancer Registry, and served as the Health Dept.'s representative on the NJ GIS Committee. In 2001, he provided GIS support to CDC during its anthrax bioterrorism investigation at NJ postal facilities by creating internal maps of equipment, personnel areas, and ventilation system for CDC's analysis of FBI and NIOSH anthrax sampling locations.

More recently (2002-2007), Ric served as Program Manager at Baystate Medical Center's Health Geographics Program (HGP; Springfield, MA) -- the only hospital-based full time GIS department in the U. S. While there, he managed the HGP team and participated in a variety of GIS projects including epidemiology, autom